Thursday, May 23, 2013

AFTER EARTH by Peter David

Peter David is known for his Star Trek novels and various fantasies and fan fiction novelizations, and his latest is AFTER EARTH, based on the screenplay by Gary Whitta and M. Night Shyamalan, which was originally a story idea by Will Smith. It's a father and son tale that plays out a thousand years after Earth has been abandoned for a colony called Nova Prime, and covering the training of Rangers. Their mission together becomes one of survival against an alien creature on a world that has evolved since we left it. David H. Lawrence narrates with an easy, listenable style that fits the text, which sounds like a biography, with a rounded plot that resembles the arc of a play. (Lawrence also reads several other audiobooks, such as R.J. Jagger's P.I. tale "The Shadow File.") SCATTER, ADAPT, AND REMEMBER by Annalee Newitz has the descriptive subtitle "How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction." Read by Kimberly Farr, this is a non-fictional look at what might be coming, such as an asteroid or super volcano, and how we might survive, as life on Earth has survived in the past. Only question now is, can America survive unless we institute term limits on Congress?